Mid-Month Mini Episode: Diversity Divulged

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Hey Rachel. Hey Bethany. What are you doing today? Recording of podcast. Me too. What should we talk about? How about diversity? Yes, let’s get into it. Okay. Let’s get started. So I am Bethany. We. I’m the associate director for Texas leadership, education and development. Hello, my name is Rachel Cohen Ford. I’m the assistant director for Texas leadership education and development office here at UT Austin.

So Bethany, we’re here to talk about diversity. Would love. If you could give an overview of how we view diversity and how we prioritize diversity in our leadership work. I think it’s an individualized approach. I think everybody has different lived experiences. And so that comes with them when they are incorporating.

Diversity into their practice, into their work with students. For me, I see myself as a learner on this journey. So I will continue to make mistakes. I will continue to learn from them by no means. Am I expert yet? I. Still feel. I have a lot to learn, even though I’ve experienced a lot and feel comfortable talking about diversity because I’m in that space.

I am happy to contribute my story to a broader conversation, but also recognize and encourage. The voices of others to be contributed to this conversation. And I love when my thoughts are challenged and questioned because I feel that just opens me up for more learning and different ways that I can maybe take that experience and incorporate it it into our work, through leadership education with our students at UT.

What about you? So I think diversity is sort of an umbrella term that I am using today in also talking about inclusion, equity, and access. I recognize it would be super repetitive for me to use all four words every time. So I do just wanna note that when I say diversity, I. Mean all four of those things, because I think it’s really important to talk about the action items.

When you talk about diversity and that’s often in the inclusion, equity and access umbrellas, something that a colleague recently said is that good leadership is just inclusive leadership. And let me tell you, I’ve thought about that ever since she said this and. I was thinking about our podcast today and how I wanted to explain inclusive leadership.

And that is good leadership. When you think about the people you’re leading and how to best include them in your work, I don’t think anybody ever sets out to do that. They don’t intentionally want to create those exclusive spaces, but to. Find ways to do it with a little bit more intention. I think that’s the word I’m really looking for is valuing diversity with intention when you’re working with others.

And so I think that’s that beautiful bridge between leader and leadership, right? So a leader is somebody who does good things works to create positive change. Exists in a space that is inclusive. Leadership is doing that with others. When we’re thinking about diversity, there are ways that we can open up conversations to make sure that people feel included.

And there are definitely ways that we can shut down conversations. We do these things unintentionally. Sometimes I figured we would kinda point that out as maybe a strategy to consider when you are working with others, when you are engaging in those sort of collective spaces that, um, inclusion can be considered a, a common.

I would love there’s this idea. Are you not intrigued by, by my intro, uh, to this information? Are you on the edge of your seat now, Rachel? Literally, yes. Okay, great. So it’s this concept called door openers and door slammers. So they seem pretty self-explanatory, but I’m gonna talk about ’em a little bit more go into a little bit of detail.

I’m gonna start with the negative aspects. I’m gonna start with door slammers. Cause I just don’t wanna end on a sad note. Door slammers are the opposite of a door opener. Uh, they convey that you don’t care about the thoughts and feelings of those you’re communicating with. So when you’re unintentionally or sometimes intentionally.

Conveying that to others, you were saying to them that their voice in this space does not matter examples of door slammers include statements. Like, well, that’s just the way that we’ve done things or that’s just the way we do things. So you’re instantly saying to somebody, well, your idea’s not valid. We don’t even want to hear something new.

We are really sad in our ways, right. That was a silly idea. So. Sometimes you’re in spaces where you understand the kind of the idiosyncrasies of people’s language. And that seems okay. But if you are in a meeting, especially with like a club or a group, and somebody says, well, that’s just a silly idea.

You’re devaluing that contribution. So that door is now closed to any level of exploration about what made behind that idea. Another example is that well I’ve, or we’ve never had that problem before. So. That indicates that somehow I am now different or that person who has shared something that has had that problem is uniquely identified.

We don’t consider that. We’ve never had to think about that. So we will just dismiss this and set that aside. So all of those in and of themselves aren’t like aggressive or seem like you’re saying like intentionally mean things, but subversively you’re shutting things down. We wanna try to avoid that. I think when you are wanting to pivot away from door slammers, a couple things to do is to try not to stand in judgment of a speaker’s message, which can be hard.

We wanna be quick to respond and we will unintentionally. Judge their contributions. And we don’t wanna sit in judgment of, of others’ voices. We don’t want other people to judge ours. You also wanna not jump to conclusions as a woman in professional spaces. There is the assumption that somebody already knows how I’m gonna finish a statement because how dare I have a unique in perspective thought.

So there is a conclusion that is made about what I’m contributing. Oh, and it’s just, I, I don’t like it and I don’t think anybody else would like that either. So allowing that communication partner, just get to the point, do not assume that you know what somebody’s gonna say until they’ve actually said it.

I was like, can I add one thing there? Yeah, please do. I also think that’s really important. I think there’s multiple invisible identities as well. And folks might have a speech impediment that only comes out when they’re nervous. I also have sort of a speech impediment. And so whenever I am trying to think of a certain word, I’ll get interrupted.

Exactly. Like you were just talking about like, oh, do you mean this thing? And I’m like, no, but now it’s gonna take me longer to come back to the thought that I had and we’re gonna still be here. how many times have you assumed somebody’s. Capability based on an accent. So you assume that based on the way somebody sounds, there’s a level of intelligence there.

So these are all things that we do. To shut down conversations and to just let people be who they are. Thank you for joining us today for part one of our conversation on diversity. What is your takeaway from this month’s many episodes so far next week’s episode will wrap up Bethany and Rachel’s conversation about multiple identities.

The importance of displaying listening skills. And how providing access. That is the importance of being a door opener is valuable in any industry, please like subscribe, share, and post about today’s episode for questions about this episode or the live strong cancer institutes, please email live strong cancer institutes at Dell me.

Dot U, texas.edu. You can also follow our chair and director Dr. Gail Eckhart on Twitter at S as in Sue, Gail, G a I L Eckhart, E C K H a R D T. This is ginger oor asking you to reflect on what does diversity mean to you? Is it a diversity of thought, a diversity of opening doors, or are you still navigating what that means in your life?

Thank you as always for being a supportive agent of cancer uncovered until next time.